No Response
by Sue Snell
Summary: Every day when Mello came home to the apartment he and Matt shared he screamed "Matt!" while slamming the door behind him. Though he usually made some demand or other, what really mattered to him was getting a response. And he always did, until today...
1. Out of the Ordinary

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note. If I did, Matt would've gotten a **_**lot **_**more attention, I mean c'mon, he's only the third smartest Wammy's kid.**

--

Ordinarily, the events that took place when Mello came home to the apartment he and Matt shared transpired as follows:

"Matt!" he'd scream the moment he stepped inside, slamming the door behind him. He didn't always have a demand in mind when he called out the name, but that didn't matter, he'd think of something. What mattered was getting a response.

"Eh?" Sometimes he'd have a cigarette in one hand and a Wii-mote in the other. Other times it would be the game cube or the x-box (What was the difference between these two items and why had he spent so much money to get both of them, Mello sometimes wondered privately) that held his interest. There had been a time when the Nintendo DS got the most attention, but Matt was abstaining from the DS for a while due to recently developing the habit of forgetting he didn't have a cigarette and absent-mindedly sticking the stylus in his mouth. The point was that no matter what time of day Mello arrived, no matter how much or little sleep Matt had apparently been getting, no matter about the fact that food _was _disappearing from the fridge and therefore the man _must _stop to eat from time to time, he was always distracted by some video game when Mello called to him.

Then, after more yelling and eventual use of the pause button, some excuse would be provided for aforementioned yelling. These excuses ranged from "We're out of Hershey bars again" to "I need someone eliminated and I don't trust my current underlings with something this important; shouldn't be that hard to do a drive by, here's the details..." Matt usually obliged to the simpler tasks (things involving shooting weren't all that bad, it was the long journeys to select stores to buy special brands of chocolate that got on his nerves) and then the shouting would cease and life would go on: Mello pecked away at his laptop with one hand and held a Hershey bar in the other while Matt picked up his game where he left off without missing a beat. This was the way things went, ordinarily.

However, tonight was not ordinary.

It started out ordinarily, though. "Matt!" Mello screamed, slamming the door behind him.

No response.

Grinding his teeth in frustration, Mello tried again, louder this time. "_Matt!_"

Intolerably forceful silence predominated in the apartment. At last Mello realized something may be wrong. No video game sound effects, no sounds from the kitchen to indicate the consumption of a mid-game snack, no snoring from the bedroom...

"What the hell..." Mello murmured, pulling out his gun. All the lights were out. He decided to proceed without turning any on to further alert any intruders of his presence, just in case.

Indeed, Mello found after a quick search, the apartment was completely Matt-free. Even though it was also free of signs of struggle, robbery, or foul play, Mello was somewhat panicked. Did Matt _ever_ leave the apartment when he was gone? He never came home to new groceries in the fridge or anything; all evidence pointed to "no." But then what could be so important to make him leave today?

Nerves fraying as he tried to think of what to do about this situation, Mello was about to call Matt's cell phone when he heard a noise. Struggling to quiet his already shallow breathing, he crept toward where it had come from: the front door. Holding his gun ready he watched the door open from a dark corner of the hallway. The door opened. Mello lowered his gun and heaved a sigh of relief in the dark. It was Matt.

Sliding the door shut quietly behind him while balancing two Wal-Mart bags and one bag from Game Stop in his non-smoking hand, he tentatively called out, "Mello?"

Opalescent eyes glittering in the dark as he walked up to face to man, Mello growled, "Where the hell have you been?"

"The uh," Matt gulped. Obviously, Mello was pissed. "The Game Stop closes at nine and I had to pick up _Winter Vengeance_." The expression on Mello's face was a perfect dead-pan blank. "Y'know," Matt elaborated, "The new Zelda game I ordered in advance?" More blankness. "We're also out of cigarettes and chocolate, so I picked some up on the way home..." He held up the Wal-Mart bags in demonstration, one filled as much as possible with packs of cigarettes and the other overflowing with chocolate bars; Matt knew to buy in bulk. "I figured you'd probably make me go out and get chocolate when you got back anyway..." he continued, wishing Mello would _say _something.

A preemptive strike aimed at the daily task, Mello noted, not a bad idea. Aloud he still said nothing.

"Look," Matt said, having gone from nervous to frustrated, "I don't see why you have to be all pissy about this, so I went out to get a game, so what? Big deal."

A tense moment of silence passed.

"Had it ever occurred to you, while you were out," Mello began in a low voice, "That you are the closest person in the world to me and I'm in the _frickin' mafia_ so I _might_ be a _little_ concerned for your safety in the event that you mysteriously go missing? That something might've happened to you, that it _could_ have been a _really_ 'big deal'?"

Matt was taken aback. Sure what Mello said made sense, but now he realized that the blonde wasn't just pissed, he'd been _scared_. As inconceivable as that seemed, something else got to him. The way Mello said "the closest person in the world to me." What an awkward way to word it. Why didn't he just say "my best friend"? There had to be a _reason_ he said it so weirdly...

Eventually Matt mumbled an apology and walked into the kitchen to put the chocolate in the refrigerator. Mello remained by the door, watching him. Matt noticed Mello staring but didn't say anything. As he was about to retire to the living room to get a start on _Winter Vengeance_, he heard Mello call out to him. "Matt?" Walking all the way back to where the leather-clad mobster still stood near the doorway, he asked, "What?" What Mello did next was more mind-boggling than getting scared over a twenty-minute shopping trip. He kissed him.

As Matt's eyes widened in surprise behind their goggles Mello tried not to panic again. Relief washed over him when his red-headed companion didn't pull back. From this angle he couldn't really analyze if Matt's facial expression read "I think I love you too" or "What the hell?" but that didn't really matter. What mattered, Mello reminded himself as he eventually pulled away, was getting a response.

--

**Okay, so my friend absolutely **_**hated **_**that ending due to not getting to **_**see **_**aforementioned response. If you agree with her and tell me so in a review, I **_**do **_**have an idea about a Chapter 2 for this…**


	2. What the hell, Mel?

**Thank you everybody so much for the reviews, favorites, and alerts! And a special thanks to neko11lover for adding this to the Mello Loves Matt c2. Here's Chapter 2, as promised!**

"What the hell, Mel?"

It wasn't just Matt's words that got to Mello, it was the look on the man's face, the way he stood, the way he looked like he wanted to wipe his mouth off. Everything about his appearance seemed to scream in unison with his words. _"What the hell, Mel?"_

The question echoed in the breathless silence that followed it. _"What the hell, Mel?"_

It had rhymed. It had been the first thing to pop into Matt's head. It had been a mistake to say it aloud. Blinking and avoiding eye contact with Mello, he resisted the urge to clap his hand over his mouth before he said something even stupider. If that were possible.

_Did he mean to make it rhyme?_ Mello's mind was void of any articulate thought other than this. What his mind couldn't put into words was the twisting vortex of emotion acidicly flooding his senses. He felt his fist clenching and unclenching, and the beginning of a headache pounded at the back of his skull as his breath came in short huffs. Going from getting so worked up over Matt being gone to the relief of getting him back to the comfort of being able to kiss him had been nearly too much for Mello in his current fatigued state. Breaking that soothing kiss only to be greeted by Matt's coldly incredulous reaction, it was like being woken up on a chilly morning by someone yanking the covers off you.

As it had when Mello came home to the empty apartment, silence once again held its reign of terror.

Without breaking the silence, Mello was the first to move. He looked at the gun he still held from looking for intruders, wondered if Matt had noticed it. Looked back at Matt, who wouldn't look at him. Pushed past Matt into the kitchen, toward the refrigerator. Left the apartment with his gun still in his right hand and his left stretched to hold as many Hershey bars as possible. He needed, badly, to either shoot something or eat his own weight in chocolate and thought it would be best to do whichever of these he ended up choosing a good and safe distance from Matt.

Through all of Mello's movements, Matt remained rooted to the same spot he'd stood when the blonde had kissed him. When the door closed he still stood there for a few more minutes, waiting. The bag from Game Stop still dangled from his fingers, and there was a part of his mind that had the nerve to be itching to get a start on _Winter Vengeance_, as if nothing had just happened, as if Mello were just going out on "business" again. He lit another cigarette instead, having discarded the one from before after putting the chocolate in the fridge. Before the- he couldn't bring himself to think it, not now, not yet. Maybe later. Maybe half a dozen more smokes and a good night's sleep later. Maybe. Taking a deep drag from the new cigarette, he double-checked for the reassuring weight of a half-full pack in his back pocket.

--

By the time half-full became completely empty, Mello still hadn't returned. Matt decided to go to bed.

--

Matt awoke to the sound of raindrops tapping a waltzing rhythm against the bedroom window. His first thought: It's raining. Next thought: Mello's somewhere out in it. Third: My fault. The wave of guilt accompanying the third thought almost drowned out the fourth.

Why is it so much warmer in here than usual?

He rolled over.

Oh. That's why.

He crawled out of bed as carefully as possible, practically holding his breath, allowing himself a small sigh of relief when Mello didn't wake up.

It probably didn't mean anything, he told himself as he ate breakfast (Coco Puffs, the only type of chocolate Mello would share without being at gunpoint). Hell, even if it _did_ mean something, it couldn't mean much. At most, not as much as The Kiss. After all, it was a one-bedroom apartment; they'd been sharing a bed for quite a while now.

Which wasn't to say, he pondered while crunching thoughtfully, that they shared a bed in the same sense anyone else did. Certainly not the sense that directly translated to "having sex regularly." Not even the way that meant two people with a nightly ritual of sleeping in the same bed at pretty much the same time and approximately the same amount of time. No, they didn't share a bed like that, like they would a... Gamecube. He congratulated himself on the clever simile as he drank the last of the milk out of his cereal bowl. When you shared a video game system with someone, you plugged in a second controller and you both played at the same time. No, they didn't share their bed with the intention of using it simultaneously. They shared that bed more like they would a... bathroom, he decided as he discarded the bowl in the sink. It was a necessity, and between the two of them they only had one. They both _had _to use it periodically, but very rarely did they both need it at the same time.

He lit a cigarette and waited. He couldn't tell himself exactly what he was waiting for.

--

Mello woke up with the smell of cigarette smoke filling his nostrils. Actually, he awoke to that smell every morning, the fragrance was part of the very walls of the apartment. He could tell however that _this_ scent was from a recently-lit cigarette. Part of him had hoped he'd wake up before Matt so he'd be able to leave without him knowing, just in case he felt the need to shoot something again, but, he decided, he could deal with this.

He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. He could deal with this. After a hot shower.

--

Matt got nervous when he heard Mello showering. He wondered what the blonde would do when he got out. Would he yell at him? Give him the silent treatment? Pretend nothing happened? When he heard the water turn off, he looked at the cigarette in his hand to discover his hand was shaking. Nicotine wasn't gonna make _this _case of the jitters go away.

--

After toweling off and getting dressed, Mello entered the living room to find Matt picking rather desperately at the plastic wrap that was the only barrier between him and _Winter Vengeance_. And muttering.

"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, get off. Frickin' seran wrap from hell, couldn't get through this with an industrial-strength hacksaw..."

_Tell me I'm not hearing this..._ Mello stared at the frustrated redhead who was apparently completely oblivious to his presence. After a while he realized that Matt probably knew he was there, but was going to focus on unwrapping that damn game until, well...

"Why the hell do I spend money on this if I'm never gonna get past the-"

"Oh for God's sake, Matt!" Jerking the game out of Matt's hands and whipping a switchblade out of one of his vest pockets, Mello effectively removed the plastic wrap and tossed the game back to Matt, who caught it and then stared down at it, once again avoiding eye contact with Mello.

"Thanks," he muttered, after a while. A strange expression crawled onto his face. It looked like... a smirk.

"What are you grinning at?" Mello almost literally bit his tongue after asking, his original plan was to give Matt the silent treatment. But still, if Matt found something _funny_ in all this, he had to know what it was. Which was, Mello realized, a rather silly thought in itself. What _wasn't _funny about two adult men taking three full minutes and requiring the use of a switchblade to open a frickin' video game?

"Those," Matt repressed a snicker and had to start over, "_Those _are some skills I would not want to meet alone in a dark ally. That poor plastic wrap didn't stand a chance," he snorted, "Oh, the brutality." He burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. The tension release felt good. Better than the comfort of nicotine or the thrill of beating the last boss. And what felt better was to look up through his goggles to see Mello laughing too. He was glad his friend could find himself in a good enough mood to laugh. Matt's original plan for today was to stick _Winter Vengeance_ in the machine, strap a Wii-mote to his wrist, and let reality fade away until he really _believed_ he was Link. But now, he thought, maybe, he could deal with this.

Once they had both calmed down and were breathing normally again, Matt carefully said, "Hey Mel?"

"Yeah?"

"I, I'm sorry I had to go and flip out on you there last night. That's usually your job."

Mello rolled his eyes at the shot took at his emotionally passionate nature but said nothing. After a moment he realized that if anyone but Matt had made that comment, they'd have at least three bullet holes in them by now.

"So anyway..." Matt was trying to keep talking, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. Mello was being quiet again, just like last night. He decided to tell him that. "Look, you're doing that same thing you were last night, I said I was sorry, now can't you say something to me?"

"Something," Mello said with a shrug and a sneer.

"Why you..." Matt almost let himself get mad, but thought better of it. If he got mad, Mello would just get madder. That was one contest even Near wouldn't want to risk against the blonde with the gun. Instead he shrugged and said, "Fine, if that's the way you want it. I've got a game to beat." He popped open the _Winter Vengeance_ box and pushed the disc into the Wii before settling back to watch all the sponsors and the intro. He liked to watch every game's intro at least once, so he'd know what exactly he was skipping through next time and the time after.

_That's _not _the way I want it, Matt,_ Mello thought as he watched Matt watching the TV screen._ You gotta know that's not the way I want it_. He watched Matt start the game, it was a somewhat slow beginning, now Mello remembered it was these Zelda games that sometimes had Matt skimming through ten minutes' worth of dialogue before getting to the sword swinging and whatever else he was supposed to do. Surely he wouldn't get upset if he tried talking to him during this part.

"Matt?"

"Hm?" No good, Mello decided, no eye contact.

"Matt," he said, laying a hand on the man's shoulder.

"What Mel?" he said, pausing the game and somehow managing to look straight at Mello without making eye contact.

Shaking Matt's shoulder slightly, he said, "Look at me, Matt."

Behind the plastic shield of his goggles, Matt's eyes timidly looked up into Mello's.

"I was wondering, if the kiss freaked you out so much, how come you didn't pull back?" Mello surprised himself. He hadn't actually planned on asking the question, but it _had _been on his mind ever since last night.

"I dunno," Matt said, looking down again, "You had your gun out-"

"Are you kidding me?! You didn't pull back because you were afraid of getting shot?!"

"No," Matt said patiently, "I just know that you wouldn't have had it out if you hadn't been very... concerned about me," he definitely didn't want to risk using the word "scared," and "worried," seemed to be dangerously close to the border line, "and I thought it might upset you if I rejected you right up front like that."

"So," Mello said, pulling a chocolate bar out of his pocket before this all got to be too much, "You decided to reject me immediately after I was done venting my 'concern' rather than during?" He didn't even comment on how the hell Matt could've gone through this thought process when anyone else would've been too busy thinking "Oh my god, what the hell is he doing?" It probably had something to do with all the training Wammy's had put them through.

"Well, when you put it like that it sounds..." Matt was surprised when Mello didn't interrupt him to fill in the blank. He was too busy chewing a bite of his chocolate. Finally choosing a word, Matt finished with "impersonal."

"'Impersonal?"

"I mean if you were anyone else, I would've broken that kiss without a second thought to their feelings. Well, not _anyone_ else," he amended when it looked like Mello was about to provide examples of cases where this would be untrue. "But you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Mello said, and he _really _did. Having being practiced at the art of profiling and having known Matt for years, he knew that Matt tended to keep talking when he was lying or had something to hide. Even if it meant not thinking things through and accidentally claiming that the only person in the world he wouldn't break a kiss with was the same guy who got the "What the hell?" Keeping this in mind, Mello decided to try something. Or rather, _retry_.

For the second time in twenty-four hours, Matt found himself mouth-to-mouth with his best friend. He seriously considered breaking this one, but it was pretty nice too, like the first one. Maybe he'd try to BS Mello with that "didn't want to upset you" stuff again later. Or maybe he'd just tell him the truth: I feel like more than "best friends" with you too, I just didn't know... Didn't know his own feelings. Yeah, that would go over well. Had been trained to figure out exactly what a guy was thinking just by staring at him intently for sixty seconds (one of the few profiling skills he could do better than impatient Mello) and he couldn't even tell you what he himself thought about the whole situation. Maybe it was all those video games, it made sense that living in a virtual world allowed you to slowly forget how to handle the real one. He'd have to work on that. Oh well. He wondered if Mello could tell what he was thinking. Right now he was thinking Mello's mouth tasted too much like chocolate. Of course, he probably shouldn't complain: Matt had been told before that kissing him was like licking an ash tray. But Mello didn't seem to mind.

This time, Mello noted, instead of wide with surprise Matt's eyes had that glazed over look that meant he was analyzing something. Or concentrating really hard on a video game. He eventually seemed to reach some kind of conclusion and, to the blonde's relief, didn't break the kiss.

When they finally broke for air, Matt breathlessly said, "Before we say or do anything else, mind if I get this Wii-mote off my wrist?" He was already picking at the lock on the strap.

"Sure," Mello said with a smirk. Maybe not the exact words he'd been hoping to hear, but still, he'd finally gotten a response, a good one, and that's all that really mattered.

--

**Sorry if some of that seemed kind of choppy, I typed some of this in a hurry because I wanted to get it posted before I had to leave for band camp.**

**So, loved it? Hated it? Better, equal to, or worse than chapter 1? Reviews are joyfully welcomed!**

**Shameless plug: If you're an L fan and have made it to the end of the series (and therefore cannot be spoiled) why don't you check out my fic Crossing Over?**


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